Command and Conquer 4

Welcome back to another Gamereplays Tip of the Week. In this week's Tip we will showcase one of the Brotherhood of Nod's most iconic units the Scorpion Tank.


History behind the scorpion tank

The Scorpion tank has been part of the Command & Conquer universe for quite some time, first making their appearance in Command & Conquer Generals then implemented in Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars and Kane's Wrath and now make their appearance in Command and Conquer Tiberian Twilight. A lot has changed since C&C3 and the Scorpion tank is more powerful than ever. being able to dig underground, carrying a small obelisk of light which is super effective against heavy units, crawlers and base defenses, it can even be upgraded. And last but not least their grasping clicker claws, their most powerful weapon.


Scorpion strategy's

• The Scorpion heavy opening:
  This strategy is fairly simple. Deploy your offensive crawler and queue up four to five scorpion tanks and two engineers. Move to a control node preferably far away from both spawning locations so all your scorpions are ready when you unpack the crawler.
  As soon as you unpack, move your scorpions towards your opponents Crawler, clamp any tanks he deploys and camp his crawler, this will prevent his units kiting as well since you will grab them as they leave the Crawler. Defenses aren't a problem either since they are extra vulnerable to the scorpion's laser. If he has aircraft deployed you can shoot them as well, but it might be smarter to queue up some mantises. On the other hand, there are no GDI tier one flying counters to tanks so the scorpions should be fine when facing aircraft. Just follow up correspondingly, anti air against the support class, raider buggy's against infantry and more scorpions in case he builds more vehicles. Make sure you have a few engineers as well. This start is extremely effective against the GDI offensive class as all their tier one and two units can be clamped.
• Scorpion ambush:
  Fairly straightforward as well, construct a decent amount of scorpion tanks, eight or more. And make sure to get the speed boost upgrade. Burrow the tanks to make them stealthed and search for a group of vehicles and/or infantry engaged with one of your allies or standing without stealth detection. Unburrow at their location and clamp them for an easy and effective kill. Rinse and repeat. This is very useful for catching tiberium runners off-guard as well

What makes the Scorpion Tank so strong?

As said before, the grasping claws are the strongest scorpion weapon in, perhaps even too strong. As these claws allow the scorpion to deny the C&C4 counter system by immobilizing their target making it unable to return fire, including their hard counters. As well the Scorpion laser weapons are relatively effective against crawlers during early game. With the ability to clamp down tanks as well being able to inflict effective damage to Crawlers during early game makes Scorpion tanks a very strong unit in Early game.

As for now, the first strategy mentioned above has no effective counters from the GDI offensive class, literally making its units sitting ducks when they exit the crawler. Since all the Offensive class's tier one and tier two units are light/medium units there is basically nothing they can do against a scorpion spam until they hit tier 3 and even then their heavy vehicles are extra vulnerable to the scorpion's laser. it is a true offensive class killer.

The support class also has a hard time countering these nasty creatures since their only counter to scorpion tanks is their Sheppard tanks. But Sheppard tanks alone might not be enough to counter scorpion tanks so it is best that these units are backed with air units or Conductors which not only provide a repair aura for the nearby Sheppard Tanks but able to disable the Scorpion tanks with their EMP weapons.

The defensive class get's their turrets killed by the highly effective laser, spartan tanks and infantry get clamped. Luckily they have the zone trooper that is resilient to the laser and can be garrisoned to prevent clamping, they can outnumber the scorpions as well to counteract the paralyzing clamp.

conclusions and solutions

As for now the best thing you can do as a GDI player is to simply kite the scorpions, they are slow moving tanks and can't fire and shoot at the same time. A bit of micro makes them easy to kill. As defense you could also outnumber them with Zone Troopers that require few command points and are build faster.

As you can see: the scorpion can be countered. But at the same time the unit fulfills a lot a rolls as counter. Especially if compared to the GDI counterpart, the Titan, the Scorpion tank becomes a jack of all trades. As for now they aren't used that much so nerf isn't necessary. But if the time comes, an easy way to make the scorpions a bit more manageable is to make clamped units able to return fire: only to their captor - only to other units than their captor - or with reduced damage.

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